Lucas Bridges, the first European to be born in Tierra del Fuego in 1874, lived most of his life on the Island in the days when the native Selk'nam, Yámana, and Kaweskar roamed freely on the Island and its surrounding areas. He spoke the native languages and experienced the gradual decline and disappearance of the natives as Europeans set up vast sheep ranches on the Island.
Bridges collected plenty of information during his interactions with the local natives, including the following story, which he included in his book Uttermost Part of the Earth (read it online here), foxes hunting in a pack, like wolves.
"We started off together from Harberton, both wearing snow-shoes. Amongst the mountains we saw an occasional fox-track in the snow. In the great forest, before reaching Lake Kami, we came on the tracks of over thirty of them, all travelling together in the same direction. Ahnikin told me that on rare occasions, when driven by hunger, foxes gathered in packs to hunt guanaco. I myself had never before witnessed this wolf-like trait in foxes. Nor had my father. He had spoken of having heard Yahgans telling of foxes hunting in packs when weather was extremely bad, but he had added that he was" inclined to doubt it."
Bridges is right, foxes are solitary hunters and don't hunt in packs; they are similar to cats in their stealthy ways, they hunt alone, as individuals, and pounce upon their prey to catch it after stalking it.
Wolves, on the other hand are sociable, they live in family groups, and are cooperative, They hunt in groups. This gives them an advantage becasue they can bring down larger prey by acting as a group and this improves the chances of survival of the pack in the cold environment where they live.
Guanacos are quite big, far to big for a single fox to hunt. A pack of large-sized foxes could bring one down.
Could Ahnikin and the Yahgans have seen Dusicyon avus fox-wolf? It was the size of a coyote (mentioned in this post), or was it some kind of warrah the fox-wolf of the Falklands-Malvinas Islands, both animals were related, and became extinct within the past 400 - 150 years respectively.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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